The Final Frontier
by whitchry9
Summary: Sherlockian space drabbles, written for prompts from the weekly giantchatofsumatra.
1. Sherlock's an alien, John's an astronaut

This prompt is from barachiki.

* * *

Sherlock is an alien, and John is an astronaut.

He's a doctor too, of course, but they need doctors in space.

So off John went, to boldly go, or whatever the phrase was. He's never really been one for travel, whether it was to the coast on holiday, or to outer space.

But here he was.

Here and there and everywhere, on account of the absent gravity. No planet pulling him towards it.

He missed gravity. He missed being wanted by the earth. Gravity was always something to depend on. A mathematical constant. Space was just so random.

So there he was, in his rocket, or space ship, or whatever they bloody called it. (Did he mention that he was mostly forced into this? The world was so desperate for space doctors that those who couldn't afford the schooling were offered free tuition, as long as they devoted themselves to a year of space service. John was regretting his choice, but there wasn't much he could do now.)

Alone, since he was the only one who was getting sent up that date.

(He may have needed to do extra training, but it wasn't his fault dammit, since he'd gotten that shoulder injury training six months again. Who knew there was so much training?)

On his way to the space station, or whatever. He'd learned all the lingo, but was having a bit of a hard time remembering it because he was _in bloody outer space._

It was quite a bit unnerving.

At least he didn't have to fly it. It was all computer operated, his one saving grace.

If he'd been forced to fly it, he wouldn't have made it out of the atmosphere. (Which may have been for the best...)

He sat back in his chair and sighed, looking out into the vastness, darkness, emptiness, of space.

Except... it wasn't. There was something out there. Something bright. Something that was growing.

John reminded himself not to scream, even though he was alone. _It'll be fine, _he told himself, and kept telling himself, right up until the ship started shaking.

And shaking. And shaking.

So much shaking that John worried it was going to shake itself to pieces.

Until it stopped, and he found himself (and hopefully the ship) in one piece.

But there was something else.

Someone else. (Were aliens classified as people?)

Footsteps reverberated throughout the passageways.

John pulled at his seat belt, desperately trying to free himself so he could hide before it got there.

"Hiding won't help," it said with a sigh.

_Said. In English. With a bloody accent and everything. Was this supposed to be an alien? Was it a joke?_

John peered out from behind the seat he'd crouched behind. (Like that would help.)

"Are you an alien?" he asked the creature, who looked remarkably human, especially considering he'd _been in the vacuum of space only moments before. _He was tall and lean, sharp angles of bones (or whatever he had for a skeleton), a mass of hair (or something similar) on his head, and the most fascinating eyes that John had ever seen.

"I'm an alien, you're an alien. We're all aliens to someone," he said disinterestedly.

That startled John for a moment. "I don't believe this," he muttered to himself.

The alien shrugged.

"Do you have a name?" John asked. "I don't know... you speak English. You even have an English accent."

"Sherlock," he said, examining John. "And I don't know what you mean about 'English'. I speak the language of my people, and they have spoken it for eons before that."

"Sherlock?" John said, rolling it around in his mouth. It certainly was an alien enough name. "I'm John."

Sherlock frowned. "A strange little name." His eyes twinkled. "For a strange little ma-"

"Don't finish that," John warned.

Sherlock looked intrigued.

"What the hell are you doing on my... erm, my rocket ship?" John demanded, stumbling over the correct words.

Sherlock blinked. "It's not a rocket ship. The propulsion is supplied by-"

John waved a hand at him. "Whatever. I'm waiting for an explanation."

Sherlock shrugged. "I was bored. I decided to wander. Got a little bit stranded, saw you in your space craft, decided to pop on in."

John rubbed his face, processing that.

"How can you survive in space?"

He shrugged. "How can you not?"

"Our bodies aren't built for it," John retorted.

"And ours are," Sherlock replied.

John examined him warily. "You look rather human look, considering."

Sherlock glanced at himself. "I hadn't noticed."

John sighed.

"Our forms... aren't always like this. They can change to suit our environment. It's probably why I look like you, since I'm in a ship that has an environment designed to keep you alive." He smiled. "It's why bubbles are round on your Earth. Most convenient form of travel."

John blinked at him.

"Yeah, sure. Did you want something, like, to take over my planet, steal my ship, kill me and all other humans? Anything along those lines?"

Sherlock looked at him like he was the one who spoke about his form changing.

"No," he snorted. "Whatever gave you that idea?"

"Too many movies, I suppose," he mumbled.

Sherlock shook his head. "I just wanted a ride."

John shrugged. "Sorry, I can't fly this thing. It's all computer operated."

Sherlock grinned wickedly. "I can take care of that."

"What?" John protested, as Sherlock headed towards the panels and began dismantling them with his bare hands. Or whatever. John didn't even know anymore.

"John," Sherlock said, pausing to look into his eyes. "Can you honestly tell me that you want to go to this," he waved his hand around, "space station, and spend a year there taking care of space sickness and complaints of aliens flu?"

He had a point. "No, but-"

"Then we'll go somewhere more exciting."

He knew he was losing this argument. "Like where?" he asked weakly.

"Oh John..." Sherlock sighed happily. "We can go anywhere in the universe we like."

The worry and panic that had been settled in John's stomach for the past weeks faded, to be replaced by something he couldn't quite recognize.

"Anticipation," Sherlock told him.

"What?"

"It's what you're feeling. Excitement, happiness, a tiny bit of worry. Anticipation."

John gaped. "Did you read my mind or something?"

Sherlock snorted. "I don't read minds, I deduce. Of course," he added, "Your mind wouldn't be very hard to read. It's sort of... screaming at me. Could you quiet that down at all? I'm working here."

John closed his mouth and sat in his chair, letting the strange spaceman dismantle his ship, _their ship, _until he'd finished, replacing the panels back on and looking at John.

"Now," Sherlock asked, his strange eyes glinting at John as he grinned. "Which way would you like to go?"


	2. Sherlock's a spaceship, John's a meteor

This prompt was from bakerstreetskulls.

* * *

Sherlock is a spaceship and John is a meteor.

They're headed for mutual self destruction. They're both going to crash and burn, neither of them knowing it, but just ever so carefully inching towards it, at a rate no one else will notice.

But then their paths cross.

But instead of colliding, like it would be expected, they both change course. Even out. Fly straight again.

Sherlock becomes something solid for John to revolve around.

John becomes his satellite, nudging his emotions in the right direction, this way and that as he revolves around him.

And for a while, it's fantastic.

But an object can no longer orbit something that's destroyed. That's sort of the whole point. Something has to be there to revolve around.

So when Sherlock is gone, John is back to meandering through space, possibly towards destruction, or maybe towards something better.

Meteors aren't known for their good behaviour, rather their tendency to crash into things, but they looked damn nice while doing it, didn't they?


	3. Sherlock's a sun, John's a rogue planet

This prompt was from TMW.

* * *

Sherlock is the sun, and John is a rogue planet, captured into orbit.

It suits Sherlock, really, the sun-ness.

Bright, impossibly large, overpowering anything else in the vicinity, deadly if you get too close, but essential for life.

No wonder John got caught in his gravitation pull.

More or less.

Planets aren't supposed to wander.

But John did.

It wasn't terribly important of him to stay put, there was no life on him yet, so it didn't matter if he strayed from the life-giving star where he started out. He meant to just wander the universe, perhaps coming across another planet like him. They could form their own galaxy. Perhaps there would be some smaller planetoids that would be happy to be his satellite.

That was all he was asking for.

But instead he came across Sherlock, impossibly brilliant and irresistible.

It was the gravitational force, John told himself.

Sherlock didn't have anything orbiting him besides some space rocks and another star, older, cooler, further away. Of course, the other star wasn't really revolving around him, or him around it, so much as they were performing an elaborate dance or keep-away game.

John didn't pretend to understand it. He was only a lowly planet after all.

But he was sucked in to Sherlock's gravitational field, and then he was... stuck.

But it was nice. It was interesting. Sherlock wasn't like other stars, he was unpredictable, a solar flare here, a cool day there. The universe seemed to bore Sherlock. (John found this impossible to believe, since the universe was infinite, or so he'd been told anyway, and surely there had to be something out there for him.)

But Sherlock took interest in developing life on John.

Of course, to do that, John explained that Sherlock could no longer shoot out flares whenever he felt like it, nor could he just stop existing one day if he felt like it, because both those things would kill any inhabitants.

Sherlock seemed appalled at first, but it's not like he had much else to do. So he agreed.

And off they went.


	4. Sherlock is Pluto, John is Charon

This prompt was given to me by barachiki. (Again.)

* * *

Sherlock is Pluto and John is Charon, Pluto's moon. And because they both orbit each other, they never get closer, just equally spinning in space.

Sherlock is Pluto. No longer a planet, thrown out of its family.

John is Pluto's moon, Charon. The smaller one. (He's always the smaller one, no matter what.)

Although not much smaller. About half the size. Which is pretty good, considering.

But Pluto wasn't really a planet anyway, since Sherlock and John both revolve around each other.

At first, they thought that it was John, the moon, who did the orbiting, and that Sherlock was the centre of their little world.

But it wasn't so. Because Sherlock relied on John too. Not very visibly, but it was definitely there.

Which was why Sherlock was thrown out of the solar system. He wasn't really a planet anymore. Planets don't revolve around their moon.

But revolving around each other meant they couldn't get closer. Gravity tried to pull them together, but there was too much inertia for them to overcome. So they continued in their dance, close enough to affect each other, but too far apart for them to ever touch. And they resigned themselves to that.

They were special. They were codependent. They were unique. And they were one. A unit. Pluto and Charon. Sherlock and John.

And it was good.


End file.
